


things i knew when i was young.

by snerika



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, I'd tag major character death but it doesn't occur in the story, also i don't know shit abt swords and it shows, playing fast and loose with the technicalities of canon, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 20:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13465806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snerika/pseuds/snerika
Summary: When Lucretia was erasing the relic wars, a couple names got stuck in the cracks. Specifically, one older man by the name of McDonald.alternatively:the memory of Angus' Grandfather's name died long before he was born.





	things i knew when i was young.

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely a projection fic written directly after a series of bad events, i'm sorry if that shines through.  
> this is also my first ever foray into the taz fandom. wish me luck. ao3 gave me shit abt having this drafted for a month so it posted on the pages in late December so i reposted it from my phone so that's why it probably looks ugly! if it's unbearable i'll fix it in the morning.
> 
> (sidenote: i am in a much better place than i was when i wrote this at christmas!! it was a big part of feeling better. and it's been sitting in my drafts for nearly a month, i thought it deserved to be posted.)

Angus McDonald did not purchase a ticket on the Rockport Ltd. to go visit his grandfather. It was an excellent cover story in his opinion, one that prevented most pitying glances. Playing a little boy visiting his elderly, forgetful grandfather was far easier than actually being a boy detective and having to deliver some antique cutlery to the historical society (and maybe solve a murder along the way).

Truthfully, there was some question as to if Grandfather McDonald, a famed captain in both the police force and Neverwinter militia, ever existed in the first place.

Not even Angus’ mother could remember her own father’s name. Something was stopping her from doing so, as she claimed to have a headache and needed to lie down as soon as the topic arose. No doctor or cleric could find the source of those migraines, nor could they offer her any sort of successful treatment. Like many odd things in the McDonald household, they simply were.  
Of these things that simply ‘were’, the most peculiar in Angus’ mind was the short swords and the model ships.

The latter was easier to explain than the former. The model ships – ranging in sizes from fitting in liquor bottles, to so large they hung over the dining room table – that decorated almost every room in the house could’ve been a stylistic choice. It certainly wasn’t the most eclectic of those in the McDonald home, considering the (according to Taako) blasphemous amounts of fantasy oriental rugs and avant-garde but useless furniture in the same room.

The short swords Angus couldn’t come up with an answer for. His father was a banker, not a hunter or fighter, and his mother was a respectable businesswoman who preferred daggers for her self-defense purposes. Neither were the sort of people to hang up weapons on display.

And many advancements have been made in smithing since the creation of the weapons. They were poorly weighted – Angus had to call in someone who both knew about swords and was over five feet tall learn that tidbit – but the handles were well-worn, with a set of three initials engraved into the pommel. J, D, and M. No matter how long Angus stared at the letters, he couldn’t piece together their meaning.

And because Angus could not solve the mysteries within his own home, he did exactly what Caleb Cleveland did in the very first installment of his adventures: he gained experience. Angus turned to the outside world, starting out by simply calling in anonymous tips on pay stones of farspeech. Once the police force began to recognize his voice, he was brought in as an associate detective. Child labor laws kept him from being legally listed as an employee, but he did receive a stipend for his efforts.

As soon as he drank the Voidfish’s ichor, he berated himself for not cracking the case any sooner. Angus ran to the family graveyard the minute he got a free moment planetside and scraped the moss and dirt of the headstone’s inscription with a cracked fingernail.

 

James Duncan Mcdonald

War Hero, Father, Husband, and Son.

Loved in death as in life.

 

“Grandpa! I have so much to tell you!”

Maybe it was his imagination, but Angus could’ve sworn he felt his grandfather’s hand on his shoulder and hear the echoes of a warm laugh as he laid those last three silver forks on the grave.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate names for Angus' grandpa i decided were too irish and didn't match how scottish the name angus mcdonald is  
> \- Brendan Patrick McDonald  
> \- Eoin Patrick Mcdonald  
> \- Finnegan Healy McDonald  
> \- Seamus Christopher McDonald  
> \- Morgan Scott McDonald  
> \- Ronald McDonald ;)
> 
> title is from gun song by the lumineers.in fact, the short swords were originally guns so i Could Relate but then i realized that maybe putting in some Real Ass Guns outside that time Lup finds a gun is a tad extra of me.


End file.
